Pakistan is mired today in the gravest challenges of its lifetime including threats to its security, and economic survival; its economic woes compounded by a burgeoning global financial meltdown; any early solution to its dire energy needs nowhere in sight.
The army operation in the tribal areas, though carried out as a last resort, is nonetheless a stark reminder to the action in Balochistan under the first PPP government and Musharraf regime, which has contributed immensely to an ever increasing sense of frustration and alienation in the province. No less does this remind one of the army action in East Pakistan which ultimately led to the severing of our eastern arm.
The country has to be pulled back from the brink. We have no other option. All sections of society, the common man, politicians, businessmen, media, intellectuals, technocrats, and the armed forces, all of us will have to give our very best to avert the looming disaster.
The country, in the last sixty-two years, has alternated between the rule of the military and the politicians, without amelioration of the lot of the common man. The ordinary Pakistani continues to suffer from poverty, hunger and back-breaking inflation. A large part of the population continues to live under the poverty line, many in sub-human living conditions. After sixty two years of independence the State has not been able to provide a large majority of the population with clean potable water while the privileged save their health by feeding themselves on mineral water.
Clean and hygienic drinking water, which could help protect health and substantially enhance average life expectancy of the common man, is nowhere within sight. Unemployment is at its peak. Electricity is in short supply but the poor suffer the most, while the privileged make their living comfortable with private power generation. Public sector jobs go to the incompetent and undeserving, on considerations other than merit. Even worse, the jobs are often sold to the poor who get their first lesson in corruption when seeking public sector employment.
Long term investment in the private sector, which could provide jobs to the deserving unemployed youth, is rare. Health care facilities and education is similarly neglected for the poorer sections of society. The privileged provide the best education to their children in expensive private institutions, while the state educational institutions lie in a miserable state. Private healthcare facilities for the privileged are in abundance, while the state has failed to provide basic healthcare to the poor and underprivileged.
Security of life and property of the common man is non-existent, while the security apparatus is busy round the clock protecting and providing protocol to the privileged. Police are largely inaccessible to poor who get a rough deal at their hands, on even genuine complaints. Access to speedy justice is beyond the reach of the common man. This is the state of the nation today.
This pathetic state the people of Pakistan find themselves in today is in a country which was created to protect the economic and other vital interests of the Muslims of the sub-continent, and provide them an honourable and secure living. The country, in the last sixty two years, has provided nothing of value to the common man, whereas the interests of the privileged have been protected and enhanced. It is not the destiny of the poor and downtrodden to always remain poor, deprived, and underprivileged.
This is not the law of God. It is the result of the manner in which this country has been governed where power to govern and the opportunity to serve the people has alternated between the army and the politicians. Nothing has been given to the common man except tall promises and the chorus continues unabated. By their policies the successive governments have brought the country to the brink of despair and disaster. The saner sections of society have hardly had any input into the framing of State policies, and the policies adopted and pursued by the rulers have completely isolated the common man. The country has thus been brought to this abysmal state.
The political governments, which held sway whenever a dictatorial regime made space under pressure of dwindling economy, public unrest, or international pressure, have also followed policies and practices which suit and benefit the rulers and the privileged sections of society. People on whose vote they gained power have not had their lot made any better than in the dictatorial regimes.
Democracy has just been used in name to gain access to power by politicians, who have spent their time in power enriching themselves and plundering the state exchequer. It is an irony that the dictators, in their quest for legitimacy, have acted like politicians in uniform, whereas those whose claim to power has been the public mandate and democracy have acted as dictators in civvies.
They have never practised democracy within their own parties. No voice of dissent is tolerated in the party ranks. The leadership, when it changes hands, is on the basis of heredity and other undemocratic considerations. The most ironic being the recent leadership change in the ruling party through a will, as if a political party is part of the personal assets of the party leader. Such is the commitment of our politicians to democracy.
As for the tall claims of our political leaders about constitutional rule and supremacy of parliament, the successive parliaments, with dictatorial interregnums, have been rubber stamp parliaments, some completely, some to a somewhat lesser extent. The members of the House are interested more in using their presence in the House to obtain favours for themselves rather than engaging in any meaningful debate for the welfare of those they claim to represent.
Even in debates on the finance bill most members are found totally disinterested and unprepared for any worthwhile input. The contribution of most parliamentary committees has also been nominal. All decisions are taken by people sitting outside the parliament.
PML(N), MQM and, till recently, the ruling PPP leaders making the decisions were all sitting outside the parliament and dictating to it from their cozy confines, while crying hoarse about the supremacy of parliament. Their claims about constitutional rule are similarly hollow.
The 1973 constitution envisages a federal parliamentary system but, barring short intervals, the country has been run practically as a presidential form of government, even when the constitution has been in force. The practice continues even today, though an elected parliament is in place.
The ground reality is that the experiment of presidential form of government failed in Pakistan long ago, and the western parliamentary system has remained dysfunctional even during the political governments, and continues to be so. The true parliamentary system was never followed either due to amendments in the constitution inserted by the dictatorial regimes, or because the civilian governments, which had the strength to rid the constitution of arbitrary amendments, found it suitable to their taste to carry on as such.
Even where the constitution was brought back to its original form, as envisaged by its framers, the Chief Executive failed to follow the true spirit of a democratic dispensation, and ran the administration in a dictatorial fashion with the right of dissent, so essential to democracy, totally absent. PPP, which now holds the reigns, talked a lot about democracy, constitutionalism, rule of law, and return to parliamentary rule when Musharraf was in power, but lost no time in forgetting all that it stood for after gaining power.
It has practically turned the presidency into an executive presidency where all powers are concentrated; parliament rendered a virtual rubber stamp; and the PM less powerful than the PM in the Musharraf era. Surely the parliamentary democracy, envisaged by the 1973 constitution, does not have the role for the President which he has appropriated to himself. To top it, in flagrant disregard of the spirit of parliamentary democracy, the President continues to be the party co-chairman.
The fact of the matter is that our political leaders are temperamentally autocrats, having a feudal mindset. They don't genuinely believe in democracy and parliamentary system. They don't hold credible party elections or tolerate dissent within the party ranks, and regale in the midst of sycophants. They surely are not the answer, at least singly, to the myriad of problems facing the country.
Clearly the 1973 constitution has failed as a workable document. It needs to be scrapped and replaced with a new social contract which suits our psyche as a Muslim state; which can be instrumental in improving the lot of the suffering millions, who have seen so many governments of various hues and colours failing to provide succor to them.
The ordinary citizens find themselves in a state of despair. They have lost hope of a better tomorrow for themselves and their children. They now no longer bother about who seizes and who relinquishes power. To them the slogan of legitimacy in a dictatorial rule by politicians has lost meaning.
Credibility of politicians has sunk to the deepest pit. The common man has become totally dismissive of any calls by politicians, in a dictatorial rule, to come out on the streets for the sake of democracy. Street mobilisation calls by politicians now fall on deaf ears, because the people have lost faith in them, and in the system.
Now, military rulers, who were once cheered as saviours, fetch no such joy among the people either. There is a state of grave despondency and despair among the people. This is a matter of great concern, especially as the country finds itself buried in a quagmire today.
Faith of the people in their and the country's future needs to be revived. The country, which is facing tough security challenges, and an equally debilitating economic condition, needs to have the people stand shoulder to shoulder with the government and the armed forces to lend them strength and moral support. But there is little hope for this under the present system, or under a government which owes its rise to power to NRO, the most controversial and ill-conceived piece of legislation - mercifully now defunct.
Both major political parties, PPP and PML (N), directly or indirectly, owe the return of their leadership from exile and their return to power, to the lawyers, media, and civil society's movement which forced Musharraf to promulgate NRO. It's a pity that PPP, after achieving the impossible via the NRO, claims that democracy has returned to the country as a result of their struggle. Nothing could be farther from truth.
With the credibility of the government at its lowest, and the gulf between its words and conduct the widest, there is no hope that the government and its policies will find the people standing by their side in this crucial hour. More so because the government lacks the genuine legitimacy required to garner this kind of support.
Legitimacy is not just constitutional legitimacy. Genuine legitimacy encompasses moral legitimacy, which lends the strength of the people to its rulers. With properties abroad, and liquid assets worth, at least, millions of dollars stashed in their foreign bank accounts, gained through patent plunder of public exchequer, while the country faces a liquidity and economic crunch, the leaders can not hope to acquire the much needed moral legitimacy.
This plunder of public exchequer does not require any proof as money does not grow on trees; else ordinary Pakistanis would have been as rich as these leaders. The argument that the cases against them were not proved does not hold ground since those cases were closed as a result of a political deal and the NRO, and the charges were never disproved or quashed through a transparent judicial process.
Even when the benefits of NRO, which has now been struck down by the Supreme Court, were available to them the legislation failed to confer moral legitimacy upon its beneficiaries, so essential for any leader to gain public confidence and rise in the public estimation. All leaders require this kind of public support, especially in such critical times as the country is faced with. A landmark US Supreme Court judgement is an eye-opener for those who like to close their eyes to the fact that the proclamations and conduct of the rulers, apart from affecting them, serves to greatly influence the shaping of the psyche of the nation.
The court observed in Mapp v. Ohio (367 US 643) that: "Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence." "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example...If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
What lesson our rulers are imparting to the people is anybody's guess. The government has packed its ranks with the defunct NRO beneficiaries returning to the country from exile, to seize cushy and lucrative assignments. The most important issues confronting the nation today, beside economy and unemployment, are the executive-judiciary relations and security/ war on terror.
The PPP's answer to these serious questions have been Babar Awan and Farooq Naik, who have never been known for their expertise as constitutional lawyers; and Rehman Malik, forever clueless and always feigning supreme knowledge of everything under the sun; while the party leadership and the august office of President have fallen, like an overripe fruit, in the lap of its co-chairman.
Pity the party that can't find competent persons with an unblemished record in its ranks or in a country of 180 million, to occupy important public offices. This surely is not what the downtrodden people of Pakistan, looking for change, and a clean and accessible government to provide them healthcare, education, employment, security, and justice had bargained for on the 18th of February, 2008.
The country has now come to a pass where it can no longer afford the luxury of this game of musical chairs where power alternates between the hands of dictators, and politicians behaving as dictators in civvies. Nation needs a change. A genuine change which can give them hope of improvement in their lot, and an honourable, secure, and dignified existence. Sixty two years is a fairly long time.
The nation can ill afford this charade, this game of musical chairs, any more. The country is at a crossroads, facing an extremely critical time where it requires a committed, clean, and competent government, and a system which has the promise to fulfil the hopes and aspirations of the people.
The barometer of the success of a government or a system is that, in a given time-frame, it is able to bring about visible improvement in the lot of the common man, and not that it enriches the rich and further empowers the powerful and privileged. A good government or system needs to enrich and empower the poor and underprivileged. All governments in the last sixty two years, and all systems we experimented with, have failed to deliver this to the people.
It is imperative, therefore, especially as the country is facing crucial challenges, and the common man is despairing and losing hope in a better tomorrow, that out-of-box solutions are found. The present system generated by the constitution has proved unworkable and has failed to provide succor to the common man, the essential constituent of the state.
The nation needs a new constitution, a new social contract where all the stakeholders pool their resources, expertise, wisdom, and experience together to run the affairs of the state, with the ultimate aim of greatest good of the greatest numbers. The affairs of the state and destiny of the nation are a profoundly serious matter.
It can not be left in the greasy hands of footloose and fancy free politicians, or the whims of narcissist dictators. It can not be left solely to the fancy of plundering politicians, or military dictators constantly labouring under the spectre of constitutional illegitimacy, forcing them into compromises of sorts.
The country needs a democratic system which suits our psyche as a Muslim state, blocks the path of authoritarian regimes and military take-overs, provides internal checks on the undemocratic practices of politicians, ensures a workable system of transfer of power, and allows a fair share of collective expertise of all stakeholders injected into governance without their having to labour under the burden of quest for legitimacy.
The constitution of a State is framed to serve the best interests of the constituents of the State. A democratic system does not necessarily have to be a textbook presidential or Parliamentary system. USA, France, Switzerland, Turkey, Iran, and other States have evolved systems that suit them best.
There is no reason why we should continue to tag along with the British Parliamentary system, just because we were a British colony before independence, when this system has always remained dysfunctional, which is proof enough that the system does not suit our psyche and answer our specific needs as a nation.
An outline of the proposed constitution/ state structure and policies is, hence, laid bare to replace the present constitution and system of government, for public debate and adoption. This surely is not the last word and, remaining within its broad parameters, the nitty-gritty can be worked out by the experts.
During dictatorial regimes power is concentrated in the hands of one person giving rise to frustration and a sense of alienation among the people, especially those belonging to smaller provinces. Devolution of powers and equal share of all provinces in decision making has, therefore, been suggested. The proposed system also envisages and ensures continuity, so essential to stability and progress.
Institutional arrangement for armed forces nominees and technocrats' induction into governance has been proposed to share their experience, wisdom, and expertise in finding solutions to nation's deep seated woes, without their being under pressure of the quest for legitimacy.
This new social contract has been proposed with the greatest intellectual honesty, and with the best interest of the country and people in mind. May this meet the aspirations of the people of Pakistan and be instrumental in ushering in better and brighter tomorrows for them. Should this proposal meet with public approval a constituent assembly may be elected to frame the new constitution and repeal 1973 constitution on the pattern of the interim constitution.
(To be continued)
Comments
Comments are closed.